Mentalist Episode Tag: Pink Tops, 4x8
by Donnamour1969
Summary: Cho has finally met his match, and it puts him a little off balance. Spoilers, 4x8. Romance/humor. No copyright infringment intended.


A/N: I laughed and laughed all the way through this episode. Jane was in top form, and we got some wonderful Cho! I'm torn between two lines that were my favorits: _I bet I can make you cry like a baby _**and **_It makes me want to go to the bathroom. _

And I absolutely love Summer! You can't fake that kind of chemistry. I love how shaken up Cho was by her. I think he's met his match.

Anyway, I've never written a Cho-centric tag, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try it. I hope you enjoy it.

**Mentalist Episode Tag: Pink Tops, 4x8**

_This isn't good_, thought Cho. _Not good at all_.

He sat on the bar stool next to Summer Edgecomb, glanced at his watch and saw that technically he was off the clock. He ordered a beer.

Summer was a prostitute, he reminded himself. A whore. He'd seen a million of them, both as a cop and before, and they were all alike-sad, used up creatures who had fallen on hard times with as many excuses for their plight as there were eager johns lining up to pay. But there was something different about this one. She was too perceptive, too intelligent, too witty to have come by her profession in one of the usual ways. She claimed that _he_ was mysterious, but she was definitely hiding something much deeper behind the shocking pink streak in her hair and the slutty clothes of a working girl.

"So, how does this work, exactly?" she asked, her fingers sliding suggestively up and down the straw of her second Bloody Mary. Cho felt almost mesmerized by the sensual motion, and when he met her eyes, a humorous spark told him his reaction had been completely intentional. "You call me and I come running? I don't think so. I'm no man's lap dog, Kimball." Then she gave that wicked little twist of her lips again. "Maybe a lap _dance_…"

His mouth quirked slightly. "If I need information, I'll call. We'll meet someplace. That's it." He sipped his beer from its frosty mug, grateful for the moisture hitting his dry mouth.

"Hm. And then you pay me, like one of those poor impotent guys who just wants to talk."

"I'm not impotent," he said, but it sounded like a promise even to his own ears.

She grinned in her own private amusement, her eyes flicking over his broad shoulders appreciably.

She signed the paper with a flourish of the pen she'd fished from his shirt pocket moments before. Her skin had been so warm he'd felt it through the stiff cotton, and he'd swallowed, his heart thumping hard at her touch. Her nearness made his brain fuzzy, made him forget how to breathe.

She was dangerous, and that was the problem. Cho had always been attracted to danger, which was one of the reasons he'd been such a great Playboy, and now, a great cop. But this kind of danger was in many ways worse than dodging bullets or pursuing bad guys. This, for Cho, was life or death on a much deeper level.

Summer slid the pen and paper across the short distance between them, and he glanced down at her delicate hands. It was then that he noticed the faint smudges of purple and green at her alabaster wrists, and he had the horrified suspicion that he'd been the one who'd put those marks there when he'd roughly cuffed her the day before.

He'd been angry-with her for continuing to be what she was; with himself because he wanted so badly for her to be something she was not. But she'd surprised him by being more injured emotionally by his manhandling than physically; her voice had shaken a little like she'd been on the verge of tears. He would have thought a hooker would be hardened to such treatment, but he had the stricken feeling that she'd reacted this way because it had come from _him_. Somehow, he'd deeply disappointed her, too.

He touched a bruise now with a gentle index finger, meeting her brown velvet gaze. "Sorry," he said, and he hoped she knew he also meant for the humiliation he'd caused her.

She nodded once, her eyes going slightly misty before she shook her head and smiled a little.

"Next time, we'll use _my_ cuffs," she teased, and he felt unaccountably gladdened that she'd forgiven him.

_A hooker with a heart of gold, _he thought ironically. _What a cliché._

"You're smiling, Kimball," she accused. "Was it something I said?"

"No; something I thought."

"Anything you want to share with the class?"

"No."

"I bet you were rethinking that massage I offered you. You seem stiff as a board tonight." There was no denying the double entendre of that statement.

"Not any more than usual," he said dryly.

She laughed aloud. "This is going to be a lot of fun, Agent Cho," she said, meaning it, her lively eyes captivating him once more. He took another drink of beer.

"Yeah," he said fatalistically.

_This is not good, _he thought. _Not good at all._

A/N: I sure hope Summer returns. There really was a spark of chemistry between those two actors. And what an opening for some delicious complications! Please, writers, don't let us down!

If you liked my tag, please take a minute and let me know!


End file.
